Professor
— Ph.D.,
University of Virginia

Contact

Biography

Professor Barany’s research and writing have focused on military politics, military sociology, and democratization globally throughout his career. More recently he has become interested in the monarchy as a form of government in the contemporary world. His early scholarship was also concerned with ethnopolitics (particularly the Gypsies/Roma) and East European politics more generally.

Professor Barany’s principal current research project is How Armies Respond to Revolutions and Why? – a book to be published by Princeton University Press. The central argument of this study is that it is possible to make highly educated guesses, if not outright predictions, regarding the generals’ reaction to revolutions – and thus about the outcome of revolutions – by analyzing a number of domestic and external factors. The case studies include both single-country revolutions (Cuba, 1959; Iran, 1979) and clusters of revolutions (China and Eastern Europe, 1989; North Africa and the Middle East, 2011) to gauge processes of diffusion.

Professor Barany is the author of The Soldier and the Changing State: Building Democratic Armies in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas (Princeton, 2012), Democratic Breakdown and the Decline of the Russian Military (Princeton, 2007), The Future of NATO Expansion (Cambridge, 2003), The East European Gypsies: Regime Change, Marginality, and Ethnopolitics (Cambridge, 2001), and Soldiers and Politics in Eastern Europe, 1945-90 (Macmillan, 1993). He is also the co-editor of five other books: Is Democracy Exportable? (Cambridge, 2009), Ethnic Politics after Communism (Cornell, 2005), Russian Politics (Cambridge, 2001), Dilemmas of Transition (Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), and The Legacies of Communism (Johns Hopkins, 1995). Professor Barany has published dozens of articles in academic and policy journals including Armed Forces & Societies, Comparative Politics, Ethnic & Racial Studies, Government & Opposition,Journal of Democracy, Journal of Strategic Studies, Parameters, Policy Review, Political Science Quarterly, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Security Studies, Slavic Review, Strategic Studies Quarterly and World Politics.

Professor Barany has been a National Fellow and the Susan Louise Dyer Peace Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a NATO Research Fellow. His work has been supported by the East-West Center in Honolulu, the Ford Foundation, IREX, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, as well as the universities of Edinburgh and Oxford in the United Kingdom. He has lectured at over 150 universities, government agencies, and military institutions around the world. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (New York) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London).

Interests

military politics and sociology, democratization, monarchies

MES 384 •
The Military In Politics

This course is designed to familiarize graduate students with the military's role in modern state and society. The focus is on the sociopolitical character of the armed forces. We will examine the most important issues of civil-military relations, such as why is civilian control important, what types of control arrangements are conducive to healthy civil-military relations in various types of political regimes, and in what ways do military elites respond to state policies and social movements. The class begins with eight weeks of intensive readings in order to get you grounded in the literature and help you learn to appreciate the diversity of civil-military relations in different political systems. You will write brief (one single-spaced page) discussion proposals to facilitate debate about the readings. We will conclude with student presentations (approximately 30-minute summations of your research). The seminar paper is due at the last seminar meeting (April 29); extensions will not be given save for truly exceptional cases (e.g., unanticipated call-up for combat duty, debilitating illness, etc.).

Grading Policy:

8 discussion proposals (2.5% each) : 20

seminar participation (including presentation

of the research paper) : 25

research paper (20-25 pages) : 55

I will assume that as graduate students you will do the readings as assigned. I want you to immerse yourselves in the books and articles in order to be able to make critical and insightful comments during the seminar meetings. Since the seminar is based on discussion, without your substantive, engaged participation it will be of little use.

The research paper is the most important requirement of this course. The paper should be 20 to 25 double-spaced pages in length and should be informed by at least 25 different sources (books, articles, etc.). The paper should be structurally sound and the argument(s) should be built to follow logical reasoning. Ideally, it would take advantage of some existing theory to inform its argument(s); it should be analytical and feature relatively little descriptive material (i.e., ask not “how?” ask rather “why?”).